Integrating refugees into higher education – the impact of a new online education program for policies and practices

Higher education policy dynamics in turbulent times – access to higher education for refugees in Europe

“…At the same time, the literature on how HE systems respond to the issue of enabling access to HE for refugees is relatively recent and still somewhat limited (see e.g. Berg et al, 2018;de Wit, 2017;Reinhardt et al, 2018;Schammann & Younso, 2016;Schneider, 2018;Streitwieser et al, 2017). As especially comparative studies looking at multiple countries are rare, our study has primarily an explorative character (see e.g.…”

Refugees and online education: student perspectives on need and support in the context of (online) higher education

“…Against this backdrop, within the framework of the research project 'SUCCESS' (for project description see Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia et al 2017; for research, design see Halkic and Arnold 2017), we investigate the online educational offer of Kiron Open Higher Education (Kiron). The Kiron offer has been analysed from different perspectives: students' diversity and its implications for instructional design (Reinhardt et al 2018), refugees' study pre-conditions (Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia et al 2018), refinement and further development of the Kiron offer (Suter and Rampelt 2017; from a perspective as Kiron staff members). In contrast to these studies, in this paper, we look at the actual usage of the offer and its uptake, with a focus on support services.…”

The Influence of Refugee Students’ Personal Characteristics on Study Success in Online Education

“…On the one hand, the study design influences this result, as the motivation to complete a Business English module may be lower if there is already high level of language proficiency. On the other hand, as Reinhardt et al (2018) show, the ability to speak English differs depending on the country of residence. This can also be confirmed here on the basis of the descriptive results.…”

“…As studies have shown, however, not only participation in the MOOCs but also participation in study-relevant forums and interaction with other students and lecturers influences the retention rate and the final grades (Gillani and Eynon 2014;Rovai 2003). It can also be assumed that they participate less in MOOCs-related communication due to poorer English proficiency (Reinhardt et al 2018). Further research should therefore not only focus on the language level but also on the extent to which students participate in online studies and how language proficiency improves.…”

“…1). In addition, we controlled for variables that have been found to influence the educational success of refugees in online education, such as educational attainment (Greene et al 2015) and current country of residence (Reinhardt et al 2018).…”